She had been to three Olympics, winning 10 medals — more than any U.S. woman in history — including eight golds.

Jenny Thompson had achieved everything swimming had to offer — except one thing — when she retired after the 2000 Sydney Games.

And when she began a comeback two years ago, that one thing had little to do with it.

Thompson, the 31-year-old former Stanford star, begins her quest for a fourth Olympic team today when the U.S. swimming trials get under way at Long Beach. She is entered in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle races and the 100 butterfly — and is seeded among the top three entries in all three.

A top two finish in any of them sends her to Athens next month with a chance to secure an individual Olympic gold medal — the one accomplishment that has eluded her grasp.

But if others still wonder about that solitary hole in her rsum, Thompson is anything but obsessed with it.

“I knew her pretty well, and there wasn’t really anything that had to be said as far as why,” said coach John Collins of the Badger Swim Club in Larchmont, N.Y., with whom Thompson made her comeback two years ago, after two years

attending medical school at Columbia University.

“She basically came back because she likes swimming and missed it,” Collins said. “She’s coming back on her terms, not with some grandiose plan that she’s going to win the Olympics. She’s done that too many times before.”

Thompson said questions about her pursuit of an individual gold medal are inevitable.

“From the outside, that’s the deal,” she told the Washington Post. “But it would be a shame to let all the success and all of the blessings I’ve had (be overshadowed) by one thing.”

Richard Quick, who coached Thompson at Stanford and through the 2000 Olympics, is pleased for his former star.

“She’s off the charts,” Quick said. “There’s no reason to quit when you’re as good as she is and you’re having as much fun as she is, and you’re improving. And she’s doing all those things.”

Even if Thompson doesn’t finish among the top two in the freestyle sprint races, she could be selected to the pool of swimmers that will fill the relay foursomes.

“No doubt, she’s the greatest relay swimmer in history — and there’s nothing bad about that,” said Collins, alluding to Thompson’s eight Olympic relay golds. “I don’t think Jenny’s worried about winning an individual gold medal. She’s always been a team player and still is. She just wants to be in the mix.”

When Thompson first joined Collins’ team in September 2002, she had trained very little for more than 18 months. She still was attending medical school at the time — she now has taken a leave — and the two worked around her class schedule at the club’s training facility at Lehman College in the Bronx, just 15 minutes from the Columbia campus.

Workout sessions were only 90 minutes a day at that point, but Collins easily recognized Thompson hadn’t lost what was critical to her success as a swimmer.

“Jenny has such an enormous amount of background and experience,” he said. “She’s a tremendously competitive person who loves to win, loves to race. She’s a fearless competitor. She hasn’t lost any of those elements.”

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